FRR is the Romanian Achievements Fanclub. Everybody can be a member even if you don't have the big 'R' upfront. We were asked to talk about fancy things like urban 'methodologies' at a seminar organized by the Fine Arts University in Bucharest Romania. What came out was a rough, down-to-earth, humorous and cynical approach to a very grave and fatalist matter. It was our unwanted gift to them. As you can see all the spaces described defy any fixed categories, they have different histories, backgrounds and positioning - but they all were processed by the same inexorable forces of the conquering new territories and markets or exhibition spaces.
The fact that a lot of art spaces, galleries, indie spots, alternate cultural realities - got closed down at a fast & furious pace during the last 10 years. Well, this is competition! We followed in the steps of the great competition launched by the market economy. We had a walk trough the city center trying to convey the facts of 'invasive biology' at a very narrow level. Loss of cultural diversity, was part of a slow take-over by mostly conservative, commercial or touristic-kitschy businesses or oldskool art aficionados. Other more lucky cities such as Cluj (Kolosvar/Klausburg) have seen this in the past - but they somehow stopped looking back in their relatively comfortable situation of new.
We were partly involved in evacuating those thrown out of ateliers or cultural spaces for not paying the rent, electricity or because the old owners (the former patrons returned after 89' trying to make a quick buck) had other interests or wanted to be more efficient. We also presented this at the Magma space in Sf Gheorghe - a new and active art space (who practically displaced a McDonald's that was trying to buy the space they now inhabit). Another presentation took place in Cluj at the Fabrica de Pensule (Paintbrush Factory) - in a discussion about different kinds of 'collection'. Well, it actually makes sense now at the end of 2010, for the first time after many years to have a collection of closed spaces in Bucharest. This is what we achieved.
We try to depict a state of fact that would otherwise go down mostly unnoticed. We try to celebrate in an unwanted way the NEW, the ENHANCED 2010 version. What has happened while we were talking, cheering, partying and exhibiting in the last years. We are also part of the collection with the ParadisGaraj space http://aerobix.blogspot.com/search/label/ParadisGaraj 'naturally' closed down after two years of erratic activity. Everything ends up with the former belongings of the Perjovschi artist couple and many other neighbor artists (you can read their barely visible names on the post box) that slowly but surely got eliminated from city center Bucharest. The lucky ones were able to save themselves from the vindicative historicist takeover and move their belongings to some other place. Otherwise after the big amnesia - tabula rasa prevails compounded by feelings of soreness, high emotions and vicious disclosures.
Keeping a clear head is difficult but we have discovered several common characteristics of all this takeovers or re-appropriations: deleting fingerprints, cleaning with detergent, making previous life-signs disappear and slowly throwing everything else left behind to the garbage. Actually self-evacuation is the best way to protect what is left of you, otherwise you have to pay somebody to evacuate your belongings!
The return of the repressed manifests itself in the backlash of more established and traditional art forms - painting, drawing, nice frames, big. Covering up and renaming gallery fronts is really an active business. This is just a small example of a whole urban renewal campaign to 'clean up' the city center, make it more profitable, more showy and more expensive and BUCHARESTian.
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